ya/tween reading level sci-fi/fantasy type novel [s]

[Ann aka Iftcan]

This is a sci-fi story that I read to my daughter back in the early to mid-80's.

The main characters are a group of children who, because of various physical disablilites (the main boy is paralysed from the neck down from an accident) all live in the same wing of a long-term hospital. Most of them need to be on machine assistance like breathing/feeding etc. THey have 1 nurse that they are especially fond of, who is a middle-aged black woman. She also seems to be the only one of the staff who actually cares about the kids. Most of them are also either orphans or have been abandoned by their families.

Ok, that's the background, which I believe comes out in bits and pieces during the story.

The hospital is going to be shut down due to lack of funding, and the kids will all be sent to different hospitals, which they (the kids) don't want, as they've formed a kind of family unit among themselves.

One of the kids reads a book about psychic powers, so the kids decide to try to develop their own so that they can "escape" and stay together.

Eventually the paralyzed boy is able to teleport himself out of the hospital. He comes back with a pebble and I think a flower, which is what convinces the other kids that he's succeeded. But, as a side effect of that--he's also suddenly able to move at least a bit again.

End of story--they all manage to teleport themselves and the nurse (who had no other family either) to the meadow that the first boy found. This teleportation also seems to help all of the children to overcome their disablilities and to survive--and even to learn to walk.

At the end of the book they are met by the people who live around where they've teleported to--which is the future--and everyone has psychic abilities there.

[Leela4]

The Magic Meadow by Alexander Key

Good luck finding a physical copy, it's very rare. You can read a scanned copy at http://web.archive.org/web/2005021802...

[Ann aka Iftcan]

Leela--thank you, thank you, thank you. That is IT. :o) Now to put it on wish lists and keep looking for it until I find it.

[Wendy]

The last comment was over four years ago. Leela4 is correct, copies I have seen run $45 and up. VERY rare.